Political Blog

I've just completed my first post on a new blog, Lady Julia's Teapot. I decided I needed a separate space to blow off steam about various political issues and to respectfully explore differing points of view with rational people. If that sounds like your cup of tea (yes, I know - that was really bad) stop on by.

Once More About Sarah Palin

I've been thinking a bit more about the issue with the rape screening charges and Sarah Palin (I swear I am not going to let this become a political blog - it's just that some of these issues are very important to women).

According to the Huffington Post, Palin knew that the budget had been cut and that women who were raped would be required to pay for their own testing. In fairness, this could be true, but it isn't necessarily so. I have done a number of budgets in my time that were compilations of submissions from various departments. I knew what was in the budgets because I read each line, but I cannot say I would have noticed what was taken out.

I couldn't really find the area on the Wasilla financial reports that were addressed by Huffington Post so I'm not sure if it was plain to Palin or not. Until I know for sure, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I do not agree with her position on many of the issues, I've reason to believe she's been untruthful in some of the things she has said and deliberately misleading in some others, but I cannot imagine why any woman, no matter what her beliefs, would think something like that was ok.

She Who All Women Should Vote For

From the AP 9/11/08

Quote:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city billed sexual assault victims and their insurance companies for the cost of rape kits and forensic examinations.

Palin had been in office for four years when the practice of charging rape victims got the attention of state lawmakers in 2000, who passed a bill to stop the practice.

Former Democratic Rep. Eric Croft, who sponsored that bill, said he was disappointed that simply asking the Wasilla police department to stop didn't work. Croft said he doubts she was unaware of the practice.

Maria Comella, a McCain-Palin campaign spokeswoman, said Palin "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test." To suggest otherwise, she said, is a "misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice."

As governor, Palin has worked in a variety of ways to tackle the problem of sexual assault and rape, including making domestic violence a priority of her administration, Comella said. Alaska routinely has the nation's highest rate of sexual assault.

End Quote



In four years of being the mayor of a town of 7,000-ish, she never ever once heard that rape victims were being charged for sexual assault exams?


Quote:

Lawmakers became involved in 2000 when reports began coming in that police departments were charging sexual assault victims for the kits and the forensic exams, which cost from $300 to $1,200 at the time. The kit, a package of sample containers, swabs and other medical supplies, is used to collect evidence from women after they are attacked.

Then-Gov. Tony Knowles said Thursday that Wasilla was unique in the state in charging rape victims for the cost of doing the law enforcement necessary for solving the crime. The bill passed the Legislature over the objections of Wasilla police chief Charlie Fannon, who said it would require the city to come up with more money to cover the costs of buying the rape kits and doing the exams.

End Quote


According to the Boston Herald,


Quote:

Fannon was appointed to his position by Palin after her dismissal of the previous police chief. He said it would cost Wasilla $5,000 to $14,000 a year if the city had to foot the bill for rape exams.

"In the past we’ve charged the cost of exams to the victims’ insurance company when possible," Fannon told the newspaper. "I just don’t want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer."

End Quote

For a town of 7,000-ish people, Wasilla saved from 71 cents to $2 per taxpayer by charging victims of this horrible crime for their own rape examination.

That's fiscal responsibility alright.

Let's say we give Palin the benefit of the doubt and she didn't know. It went on for four years in her city before the governor had to step in and stop the practice. Do you feel any better about her ability to govern when you hear that.

I know it's difficult for some men to understand how horrible rape is to a woman, but let me say that I would almost but not quite rather die than be raped. I was assaulted once by a man who made it clear he was going to rape me. Had he not been drunk and my knee not made quick direct contact to his groin, he would have. To this day I can still remember the horror of that. If it had actually happened, I cannot even begin to imagine what I would have done had the police presented me with a bill for the evaluation necessary for the criminal investigation.

Unbelievable.

By the way, I've searched quite a bit and I can find no evidence that this police chief was fired for this unspeakable decision.

------------------------------

Addendum:

According to the Huffington Post (yes I know some say you can't believe everything you read there, but they link to town documents supporting their assertions) Sarah Palin was directly involved with this issue. I'll leave you to read the article and judge for yourself.

Because She's a Woman, Why Else?

It's no secret to those that know me - I'm a Barack Obama supporter. Actually, I'm more than a supporter - I've *gasp* campaigned for him. Alright - I'll go ahead and confess the whole story - I've campaigned for him when he *gasp* was running against Hillary Clinton.

Yes, I know - I'm a traitor to women everywhere. A woman ran for the highest office in the land and I refused to help her put another few cracks in the glass ceiling. How could I? After all - she's a woman. Never mind that I don't trust her or that I believed several other candidates would have made a better choice - she's a woman DAMMIT!!

Now I have another chance to redeem myself. Sarah Palin is running for the second highest office in the land, but I'm a traitor again because I'm not going to vote for someone with whom I disagree on every major political issue. What? She's a woman DAMMIT!! We women should stick together because the pundits, many politicians and even some women say that women will vote for women BECAUSE they're women. Women should never betray other women!

I would *love* to see a woman as President or Vice President - truly I would. In fact, it kills me that the two women who have been closest to the offices were women I could not in good conscience vote for. I will not, however, vote for a woman *because* she's a woman any more than I would vote for Barack Obama because he's African American or Bill Richardson because he's Hispanic.

My vote is given to the person with whom I most agree on the issues. I would hope that's how every American would vote (yes, again, I know that's not the case but it *should* be). Of course, it may be difficult for some people to actually even determine the candidates' positions on the issues because first they must wade through innuendos, distortions, misdirection, and even flagrant lies.

Take Lipstick Gate as an example. Yes, that's what Newsweek is calling the current stink brewing between the Obama and McCain camps. Here's what started it all.





The McCain camp is loudly alleging that Obama's "lipstick" remark was a direct, sexist attack on Sarah Palin. Their proof - Sarah Palin in her VP address at the GOP told the stale joke that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was lipstick. Doesn't matter than Obama was clearly speaking about John McCain's claim that his policies will bring change to Washington. Doesn't matter that it's a commonly used phrase. Representatives from the GOP are hitting all the networks telling people that women everywhere should be outraged by Obama's *sexist* remarks and they know that they will be because women are smart enough to see through Obama (see a little NLP in that last part?) How incredibly insulting to thinking women everywhere.

Hopefully women are smart enough to say stop this idiotic misdirection all of you (both sides) and focus on the issues. I don't care if you're male, female, Republican, or Democrat - tell me what you are going to do to fix the mess this country is in. I'll decide for myself who gets my vote based on your positions on the issues.

Nigel Asked About Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin action figure anyone? I had to know what you thought about the leather...

(I'll blog more later and try to respond to some emails. Thanks to the sweet friends who have sent links for MWoW and stories for Femdom Fantasies - you're great :) (I still need more should anyone be inclined... ;)

Oh and hi Susan!! I was so glad to hear from you. Hugs.

When Privacy Doesn't Really Mean Privacy

Last week Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of US national intelligence, made a very disconcerting assertion.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information. - CNN

Trust the government - your information will be safe in their hands. Don't be even the slightest bit concerned that these are the people who have in the past taken private information and conducted witch hunts like the McCarthy hearings. Don't worry your little head over the fact that the government is also responsible for holding people in GITMO for years without access to an attorney, without a trial, and for some allegedly without even being apprised of the charges against them. It's all for national security. Doesn't matter that they were wrong in some cases (and with the McCarthy hearings in many cases), doesn't matter that we have this little thing call the Bill of Rights, doesn't matter that we have a mechanism in place called the Judicial System to deal with issues like this. We can't trust the Judicial System to do the right thing. We can only trust Big Brother. Big Brother and businesses.

Trust businesses. I think we all know that big business has one concern - big business. If we believe big business will protect our privacy to the detriment of their bottom line... oh come on. Sure they will. Think about how the oil companies don't engage in price gouging to the tune of billions and billions. Consider how insurance companies always pay out readily and easily for legitimate health care claims even though it means they won't make billions in profit each year. Above all, never worry that businesses will lose your very private information. It never happens. For that matter it never happens that the government loses private information either. I could go on and on listing the reasons we should trust businesses but I think we all know exactly how much we can trust them to always put us first.

Just in case you are one of those people who think you can't trust the government or big business, Kerr did offer another thought to consider.

Kerr said at an October intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, that he finds it odd that some would be concerned that the government may be listening in when people are "perfectly willing for a green-card holder at an [Internet service provider] who may or may have not have been an illegal entrant to the United States to handle their data." - CNN

Since illegal immigration is a hot button for a lot of people especially in the border states, I suppose he thought this might garner some support from the few people who heard that remark and didn't think, "huh??" Let's not even discuss the racial implications of his statement.

Still concerned in spite of Kerr's well reasoned remarks? Consider this:

"Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won," Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence, said in a speech last month at an intelligence conference, the contents of which only now have come to light. "Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that." - LA Times

Try Googling yourself. Unless you're a relatively famous person, just how much stuff is there out there about you that you didn't put out there yourself? I write tons of things to post on the internet under this pseudonym, but there is nothing - not one thing - that shows up on a Google search of my real name except for the things I put there. I realize this isn't true for everyone, but how much information of concern can be Googled about you?

I will agree it is true that we have less privacy now than we did in the past, but at least we can rest assured that our private thoughts and private comments to others aren't out there for the world or the government to see unless we want them to see it.

The central witness in a California lawsuit against AT&T says the government is vacuuming up billions of e-mails and phone calls as they pass through an AT&T switching station in San Francisco.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician, helped connect a device in 2003 that he says diverted and copied onto a government supercomputer every call, e-mail, and Internet site access on AT&T lines.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the class-action suit, claims there are as many as 20 such sites in the U.S. - CNN

By now you may be wondering what has prompted Kerr's completely logical remarks.

As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy. Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Congressional leaders hope to finish the bill by Thanksgiving. It would replace the FISA update enacted in August that privacy groups and civil libertarians say allows the government to read Americans' e-mails and listen to their phone calls without court oversight. - AP

I've discussed all this with several people now and I've been a little surprised at one of the more common responses. "I have nothing to hide so why should I care?"

We may feel we have nothing to hide today. How do we know that the things we do, the things we value, or the things we believe won't be something we have to hide in the future? What's "acceptable" changes. Additionally,

Privacy from government is the most important privacy of all. It's essential for a free society. - Atu XVIII

If we are to be truly free, we must feel safe in being nonconformists both politically and/or personally. If we can not be assured of privacy from the government then how can we be assured we won't be persecuted or prosecuted for our nonconformity? How would we ever be able to safely stand up to the government if we felt the government was getting out of control? Surely the government would never reach a point where it was out of control?

I believe anyone who lives or desires to live an alternative lifestyle should be concerned about this issue. How do we know that one day our behavior will not just be deemed "perverted" by some but deemed illegal by the government as well?

For those of us who are concerned about the erosion of our right to privacy, perhaps now - while the bill is being written - is the time to act by contacting our Congress Persons and sharing our thoughts on this issue.

Color Me Incredulous

I'll warn you now, this is a rant. Not just any kind of rant, but a political rant. If you've heard more than enough of those lately I encourage you to come back later. I'll post something sexy or hypnotic or all Domme-like. Promise.

Last night I was sitting in my nice comfy chair in the family room, minding my own business, just thinking about my kinkiest fantasies, when the phone rings. Caller ID indicated the call was from a toll-free number. For the past couple of months that has meant only one thing - a politician was calling to solicit my vote. Since I try to stay informed politically not only on a national level but on a state and local one as well, I decided to answer.

"Hello. This is (famous friend of Slimy Politician) calling on behalf of (Slimy Politician). I'm really concerned about the upcoming Governor's election. (Slimy Politician's Opponent) is so ultra-liberal he has just been enthusiastically endorsed by _____ a prominent gay rights advocacy group. They're convinced (Slimy Politician's Opponent) is their guy! Now you have to ask, do you really want (our state) to become another San Fransisco?"

After the recording ended I sat there staring incredulously at the phone. I know this is a conservative state but come on! How can anyone have the nerve to say something like that and not expect an intensely negative response? If it hadn't been so horrible I would have laughed at the absurdity of it all.

The phone call was bad enough, really bad, but the sheer hypocrisy of Slimy and his cohorts playing the morality card makes the situation even worse. They're using the "sin" of homosexuality (and no I do not think it is a sin) to entice votes from the religious of the state in an attempt to draw attention away from the fact that during his first term in office good ole Slimy and many in his administration were indicted by the state Grand Jury for allegations of hiring, promoting, demoting, and firing state employees based on political loyalties. They were indicted for destroying people's lives all because these people wouldn't play the political game in just the right way.

I'm well aware that an indictment isn't a determination of guilt. However, I do think it says something that Slimy handed down blanket pardons to nine of his administration cronies as a result of these indictments and then invoked the Fifth Amendment for himself. He later filed a motion with the court to order the grand jury to stop issuing indictments for offenses that occurred prior his blanket pardon and to bar it from writing a final report on its findings. Eventually prosecutors dropped all charges.

Come on. I can do the math. You can do the math. Everyone in this state who wants to can do the math. Will that matter? Probably not because so many people here would rather vote for a gay basher than vote for a liberal.

Sigh. What is wrong with people?